It occured to me on the weekend, that if I want to run the city to surf this year I am going to have to start upping the training....I regularly run (jog) a couple of kilometres a week, plus take in at least one dance class, plus lots of floor work - but I need distance on the road.

Last night I decided that I would see how far and how fast I could run before running out of steam - chose a 4 km circuit and hit the road. Good and bad - ran 2 k's - walked for about 20 metres to get breath back, then on for another kilometre....walking the last km home to cool down - before hitting the floor and stretching it all out.....all in all out for 25 minutes....which probably means i am running at around 6.5 mins a km....hm if I want to break the hour barrier I am going to need to get that down to 4-5 mins per km.... interesting.

Anyway, have a better handle on the stretching aspect - as I have been going to a flex (stretching) class at the dance studio where I wrap myself around a vertical cylindrical structure, and the actual class is very aerobic and lasts for 90 minutes / session.... as you know I managed to pull one of the quads badly in the lead up to last years race, so we'll see how we go.

My colleague Andy ran the race though, along with 29,000 other people. Amazing given the atrocious weather conditions. After nearly perfect weather, we had gale force winds and driving rain. Andy said it was so bad at one point he ran past the same tree three times.

As for my personal goal of running the City to Surf that is still on. I have started back at the gym and ran properly for the first time in a couple of months. And it felt good. better than good in fact to know that the strength, flexibility and lung capacity had not left me entirely during my flu'ey absence.

Not running the race this year has made me even more determined to get race fit for next. Hopefully there will be a couple of races in the meantime and I can start to train properly...but in the meantime I have other projects to get on with, especially as it is winter, cold and summer seems a LONG way off.

MMM1

I just don't have enough time to get race fit. I've pulled the quad and groin again, not that it was properly healed you understand, but I did it on monday night on a controlled treadmill run at the gym. What do they say about keeping fit is good for you?

So I shall let it heal properly this time, and then once it has, shall start training properly again. Then I shall run the race. OK it will be on my own - but I shall complete the damn thing. It is a promise I make to myself.

The cove is the gym where I go to - BTW. They've put together a nice training programme n all.

OK, I did a controlled run on the treadmill...and I was able to run at the same speed and distance as before the injury. Which is fantastic news, I need to up the pace....lots.

But I was also able to kick in a fair bit of core muscle work, and some back work...it's been giving me some stick of late...I creak when I move.  And please don't tell me it's my age. More likely because I spend a huge amount of my time talking to you'se guys. ANyway, we'll see how I pull up tomorrow, but it's looking promising.

I pushed it a bit on Saturday morning. The minor training session I had done last week hadn't caused me too many problems, so Saturday was the test !!

And lots of people were out and about. The lycra "nasties" were out in force, over the pavements - they don't seem to like following rules, namely SHARE the pavements, cycle/walking tracks in and around Perth. You really do take your life in your hands sometimes when they're about.

So how did it go? Well I was out for about an hour and a half, of which I ran half the time, walked the rest. No idea of the distance, that wasn't the issue - it was more about whether my leg could stand up to the time, we'll worry about speed and distance this next week. The only thing that stopped me running further was the fact that the quad did start to pull again, so I slowed to a walk. But having walked on it a lot again today (sunday) I was pleased to find that the pain component was manageable.

So it looks like the leg might be healing - finally. Thankfully. It's a pain in the leg not being able to exercise properly.

MMM1